The Secret Behind Emerald Eyes
by Sympathetic Wishes
Summary: Non massacre. Instead of Sasuke, Sakura was the one that grew up as an orphan, abandoned and ostracized by the rest of Konoha. As a teenager, Sasuke had everything anyone could ask for: looks, popularity and ninja prowess. Every girl in the academy wanted him but he secretly pined for the one girl everyone hated.
1. Emerald Eyes Chapter 1

**Note: There is no Kyuubi host in this story line.  
**

* * *

Sasuke didn't grow up liking Sakura. At first he saw her as everyone else did: that emo creepy girl that never spoke a word outside or inside of class. Her grades were fairly high, second only to him but that didn't impress him. A lot of people were beneath him and he didn't have time to care about them.

Even when he read his team assignments at graduation, having been placed with Naruto and Sakura, Sasuke still didn't give a damn about her.

Yeah she was the only girl in school that didn't chase after him but so what? He never valued any of his 'fangirls' as anything more than nuisances anyway; so she was a little better than a nuisance, big whoop.

He just wanted to continue his training to live up to the legacy of his clan, and someday join his brother Itachi inside the ANBU. To make his parents proud of him, like they were with Itachi. Everything else - _everyone else-_ was unimportant.

This was the philosophy he'd lived by until the very first day of training under Kakashi.

The masked man had introduced himself and then given the simple task of retrieving two bells from within his grasp -with the punishment of whosoever not getting a bell being forced to go without lunch.

The instant Kakashi blew his whistle, Sasuke took off, not caring about the rest of his team members and going to hide out within a high off tree branch. When he reached his perch, he saw that Sakura and Naruto had both disappeared as well, probably also going their separate paths, and choosing to wait for their turn to snatch a bell.

Naruto came out first, literally a horde of multiple shadow clones that dived down from high up in the air to come plowing down upon Kakashi with their kunais.

They failed.

Kakashi vanished from beneath them before impact and a face planted heap of messy limbs was the end result for Naruto before all of his clones vanished, and leaving his original self unconscious and defeated on the ground.

Pft. Pathetic.

Sasuke wanted to wait until Sakura made her move but no matter how much time he waited, the girl did not appear. They had a time limit and he knew that they were nearing the deadline fast.

Whatever. If she was going to take the coward route out, it was fine by him.

Sasuke materialized to right in front of Kakashi and initiated a fireball jutsu, much to the man's surprise. _Never underestimate an Uchiha,_ Sasuke thought as he sent the barrage of explosions toward the masked man. Kakashi dodged out of the way for each of them but right when his guard was at its weakest Sasuke came charging forth.

The young Uchiha very nearly grabbed onto a bell –literally his fingers touched the surface! But Kakashi teleported his entire body out of the way before he could actually grab it.

Then, to Sasuke's horror, he realized the old man had moved to right behind him. Sasuke tried turning around before the man could strike but his movement was too slow and Kakashi sent a mind numbing slice of his palm straight into the young man's vertebrae.

The attack wasn't permanently damaging, just extremely painful and numbing for Sasuke's entire body.

The young Uchiha collapsed face first onto the flat grass, his entire body electrified in pain and preventing him from really moving. All he could do was lie flat on his front, glaring at the smug Kakashi as he pulled out some orange colored book and took to reading it as he waited for the last of the three to make their attack.

And he waited and waited.

The deadline he'd given had been until noon and soon there was only five minutes left. Sasuke had been trying to break free of his paralysis during the whole time Kakashi stood there waiting but try as he might, the young Uchiha couldn't summon his strength to move even an inch forward. Naruto had stayed unconscious the entire time.

Finally, at five minutes till, Sasuke heard the rustling of grass in front of him, right before a figure materialized into the air in front of him. It was Sakura.

She could teleport already? That was a technique that ranked on par with the fire jutsus, something a genin wasn't expected to know about.

The wind picked up right as Sakura appeared, blowing her long hair kept back by her headband to the left.

Kakashi kept his eyes glued on his opened book as he stated: "Pretty late to act, aren't you?"

Sakura didn't reply. Her expression stayed stoically calm and silent as usual while she looked at the man. She raised her right hand and to everyone's amazement, there dangling between her fingers were the two bells!

Kakashi's eyes widened in absolute shock, before dropping to look at his belt, where he'd last seen those two bells tied to.

There were gone!

Kakashi finally pocketed his book and stood up straight to his height now. He motioned for Sakura to toss them to him and the pinkette obliged. Team Seven's masked mentor took extra care to examine the bells in his palm now, checking to see if they were a forgery.

And they weren't!

The bells were made unique by a mark with his own chakra and the mark was only visible through his single sharingan eye. There's no way Sakura could have copied it.

Which means they had to be real.

How in the world had she taken them without his knowledge?

This was the first time in all his years of tutelage that _anybody_ had managed to actually take a bell from him! Let alone both! He didn't even have an alternative lesson planned for this situation!

Usually this was just the first part of his lesson about respecting each other's strengths and working together as a unified unit, ect, ect.

But now…

Kakashi cleared his throat, pretending like this was a part of his test all along. "Ahem, very good Sakura."

He thought for a second, trying to hide his unpreparedness. "…since you were the only one that succeeded this mission, you will be the only one that gets lunch. Congratulations. You may…uh, choose who you want to give the second bell to."

Sakura met his eyes for a long silent moment. Her eyes narrowing ever so slightly for one second, before returning to normal and the girl intoned. "Neither."

Kakashi eyes widened at her audacity. "Excuse me?"

"If even one person doesn't get to eat, then neither should anyone else. We are a team and no one should get better treatment than another."

* * *

Needless to say, Sakura aced that assignment. It was almost like she could read Kakashi's intentions verbatim.

Kakashi had his suspicions but no matter how much he asked, Sakura refused to divulge how she'd managed to take those bells.

She just humbly stated that she had gotten lucky when he was busy reading his book.

Sasuke knew this was all bullshit.

He'd been watching Kakashi and Sakura's interaction since she first showed off the retrieved bells, just as astonished as their mentor.

He wanted to know Sakura's secret too and knew that asking wasn't the way to get her to tell the truth, after witnessing Kakashi's attempts.

Which is why right after they were released from today's lesson and everyone went their separate ways, Sasuke attacked Sakura.

He waited until they were far from potential bystanders (hiding in the shadows) before he struck.

He came raining down from above with a shinobi fist, expecting to catch the girl by surprise but Sakura turned and blocked the attack at the last second.

Her usually stoic expression gained aggravation and confusion. "What are you doing?"

"Tell me how you got those bells," Sasuke ordered simply as he sent a low kick beneath Sakura, trying to knock her off her feet but the girl once again dodged by jumping into the air.

Her movements weren't particularly refined but she moved as if she could see his next actions before he inflicted them.

Blow after blow he sent towards Sakura and no matter what he did, he couldn't seem to land an attack! Even with his fireball jutsu Sakura merely back flipped in the air at the last second to avoid any contact.

What the hell?!

Sweat beaded across his forehead in rivulets now and Sasuke genuinely felt exhaustion pool into his limbs while Sakura looked barely even a little flustered.

Soon his actions grew slow with paraphesia and in that one moment, Sakura chose to go on the offensive. She sent her elbow straight into Sasuke's jugular, cutting off his oxygen flow right as she pinned his body to a wide tree trunk.

"Are we finished?" Sakura asked plainly and in slight annoyance.

Sasuke's mind was inundated with a mix of fury, shame, embarrassment and… _slight_ admiration.

His wounded pride added the 'slight' bit because it was still in denial that he –Sasuke FREAKING Uchiha- had actually been bested, by a girl no less!

His clan was heavily misogynistic and growing up Sasuke had always been raised by the philosophy that women were in general weaker to men.

Which is why Sasuke was in so much shock at Sakura's defeat of him that he couldn't even think of a reply to her question. Eventually Sakura realized he wasn't going to respond and was only going to continue staring at her with those flabbergasted wide eyes; she simply rolled her eyes and let go of him.

Sasuke's body collapsed to the ground and it was only then that he got shaken out of his reverie.

"Wait! We're not done-"

His words got cut off by a sudden kunai getting sent straight towards his shoulder, piercing his flesh and the trunk behind him.

"Yes, we are."

And that was the last Sakura said to him before leaping up into the trees and disappearing out of sight.

* * *

 **Awesome Sakura is AWESOME.**


	2. Emerald Eyes Chapter 2

**VERY IMPORTANT: I need beta readers for my Naruto fanfics badly, so anyone interested in applying please see my profile for the application. The incentive is you'll get to see chapters A LOT earlier than the rest of my readers.**

* * *

Sasuke wanted to smash her skull against a rock. Rip her hair out in painful agonizing grips from her scalp, cut her until she was scoured and begging for grim mercy.

From the day she had defeated him so casually, Sasuke hadn't had a single day pass by without his thoughts wandering towards his mysterious teammate.

The girl that everyone avoided because of her 'creepy background:' apparently her parents had been found decapitated around her sleeping body when she was just six years old. Her entire body had been covered in their blood but she hadn't had any cuts herself.

For the first time in his life Sasuke found himself interested in someone besides his immediate family.

 _Because he wanted to kill her._ Sasuke kept telling himself, every time she defeated him. Again and again, he challenged her to duels after lessons or missions with Kakashi.

And every time he'd been handed his defeat by the girl.

Never before had anyone besides his brother been able to usurp his entire definition of himself like this. Power. He'd always identified with it. Deep rooted and natural raw power.

Be the strongest.

That's what he was.

That's what he'd always been.

Until Sakura stole this identity from him.

And he was determined to get it back from her.

* * *

The next five years passed like the blink of an eye for Sakura Haruno.

She knew he was stalking her. Every day and any instant. Always secretly staring at her the corner of his eye while they were being mentored by Kakashi or when they were sent on missions.

She could always feel his eyes prick the back of her neck like invisible needles.

But she didn't care.

He could stare all he wanted. He could watch all he wanted.

It still wouldn't give him a chance in Hell of defeating her.

* * *

When they turned 18 and simultaneously graduated from Kakashi's tutelage, they were each given different recommendations to take in regards to their life's dream/goal: Naruto obviously the steps in which it would take to become Hokage, Sasuke that which would eventually lead him into his brother's current esteemed position leading the ANBU, and Sakura-

-she wanted to leave Konoha.

No matter how much Kakashi tried to dissuade or suggest something else and how much Naruto pleaded, the pinkette stayed resolute in her decision. She wouldn't even tell them where she was headed, just that she was heading out at the end of the month.

Though the boy tried to hide it, Sakura could tell her decision had a deep impact on Sasuke Uchiha as well.

Far more than he even knew himself.

But Sakura didn't care.

He could hate her or revile her. Or _obsess over her._

Nothing anybody said or did could change her mind on this.

 _ **She had to leave Konoha to keep her promise.**_

As soon as she made her declaration, the Uchiha who always prowled through trees following her wherever she went, seemed to vaporize whenever she stepped within ten feet of him. He avoided her like she was the walking plague. In grocery stores, the ramen shop, the public bathhouses, as soon as she stepped on the community grounds, she felt the distinct departure of his uniquely strong chakra leaving the area.

Honestly, she liked this much better than the years he'd spent following her.

She could finally have her peace. Everyone in the village avoided her and she'd always liked her privacy this way.

 _Most people were nuisances anyway._

Naruto was perhaps the only person who was actually amicable to her but the boy was dim-witted and as such did not hold Sakura's respect.

She didn't care for his kindness and usually was only too glad to see his parents come into the picture, pulling him away and scolding him for hanging out with the "Haruno girl."

* * *

The day of her departure came and Sakura headed off right at midnight, wanting to spend the night traveling to gain camouflage from potential bandits. But right as she stepped into the mandatory departure path that left Konoha, a fierce grip closed around her right wrist, a hand connected to a long lithe arm originating from within the shadows street.

Her pink haired head turned upwards and faced, not at all to her surprise, the grim austere expression of Sasuke Uchiha glowering down at her.

"Stay."

It was a singular order.

Sakura's response came out in the same form: "No."

She threw his grip off.

This seemed to snap something inside the young man. Before Sakura knew what had happened, she found herself drawn tight within the man's hold: one hand pinning her wrists behind her back while his other palm wound tightly through her pink locks.

" _Listen to me you little bitch_ ," even in all the times he'd dueled her, competed against her and frustratingly lost, she'd never heard him speak to her this way, "I _**will not**_ let you leave."

He emphasized this last statement with a fierce tug on her hair, forcing her head angling back. Sakura's scream was only half born because as soon as it started it was silenced by Sasuke's searing lips as they pressed fiercely over hers.

Her eyes widened into his kiss and tried squirming away but the resistance just made his pressure increase further and for an unknown reason, she couldn't summon any chakra right then. Unable to push him off, Sakura's teeth pushed against the back of her lip painfully because of how much she refused to yield her mouth open to him.

Sasuke found this infuriating but he refused to relent, he only continued ravaging the outside of her mouth, nipping and savoring the feel of her lips until he was sated, and breathlessly parted from her.

He looked into her face. Her mouth was red and swollen but her expression didn't seem any bit upturned by his assault. She seemed just as composed as she always was, albeit now with eyes were set in flint steel. Cold and furious.

"You done? Can I go now?" she asked him and the second after those words left her lips, Sasuke found himself, for the first time in his life, on the verge of slapping a girl.

He stopped himself only just by the skin of his teeth.

"Dammit, Sakura…" he seethed through red veined eyes, sunken with dark rims from nights of obvious sleep deprivation. "Since the day you told us you were leaving, I haven't spent a single night without thinking of ways to keep you here. To make you stay…and the only thing you have to say to me-"

"How is that any of my fault?" Sakura threw back at him, interrupting him. The fact that he'd stayed up nights thinking of her didn't exactly surprise her. She'd known for a long time now how he really felt about her. Even if he'd only just recently acknowledged it to himself.

It had just never _remotely_ interested her enough to want to confront him about it.

 _Sasuke Uchiha was, all in all, just a nuisance to her._

"Did I ask you to pine over me? Did I _ask_ you to stalk me for the last _**five**_ years?" her brazen declaration over what he'd thought had been surreptitious lurking, when in fact she'd known all along, brought a jaw dropped expression across the man's perfect mouth.

Sakura just scoffed, undermining his affection. "You're pathetic, Sasuke Uchiha."

This time he did slap her.

And the act sent her spiraling to the ground, her forehead grating for a second against the asphalt pavement for a brief moment.

In the back of her mind, Sakura had already deduced the specific trap Sasuke had used to hinder her chakra right now.

Slowly, she turned to glare back at the Uchiha. He was bristling. His entire face flushed pale in his disbelief and shame at what he'd just done, but the lines of his fine jaw was still fixed in a seething tenor.

Dammit. This girl…

Sakura picked herself backup while wiping away the blood on one side of her of lip. Her forehead was bleeding pretty badly but it barely phased her. "I don't care what **_you want_** , Sasuke, I'm leaving Konoha, tonight."

He was on her again, in a second, gripping her by her shoulders and shaking her. "Dammit, no you're not!"

"And how are you going to stop me? Ivarik's Trap last only for 24 hours, Sasuke. I should have noticed how the air around here is thicker than anywhere else in Konoha. What form of my DNA did you use to form the jutsu, Sasuke? Some of my hair? Some skin samples?"

She guessed it was her hair, as it was easily attainable from any of her discarded training clothes. But it didn't honestly matter, Ivarik's trap could only restrict her chakra for 24 hours, then she would be back to normal and even be immune to the trap for the next 6 weeks. It was built this way specifically to prevent abuse of this mechanism by Shinobi since it was main used only in academic settings.

Sakura wondered why Sasuke hadn't chosen a more detrimental trap, ones typically used during wars to strip the enemy of their offensive power for weeks on end...

The man's grip tightened on her shoulders, cutting off her thoughts.

"Dammit Sakura, don't you understand what I'm saying to you?" he asked her and Sakura just sent him a wide-eyed incredulous look, daring the always obstinate proud man to say what both of them already knew.

Though Sakura didn't care about him, she still wanted to see if he was actually capable of swallowing his pride for once in his life.

"What Sasuke? What are you trying to say?"

The man was once again on the verge of slapping away the smug look off the girl's face. And he hated himself for wanting to do this. For what she changing him into. He also hated himself for caring about such a callous, selfish unfeeling girl...but at the same time…he couldn't stop himself.

"I care about you dammit!" Sasuke seethed through gritting teeth, before biting his lower lip. "I like you! I always have! Since the first time you defeated me and every instance afterwards, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you Sakura! I want to keep you with me. I want you to stay, Sakura…please."

She could tell this was the first time he had ever pleaded with anyone, ever in his entire life.

But Sakura wasn't in the least bit moved. She'd seen how callous he was towards his fangirls, towards his admirers. How neglectful he always was towards them and she found him even more deplorable now that he was using their same methods to win her over.

"Stay with me, Sakura," the man reiterated when he faced her silence, which he took to her considering his offer. "I shouldn't have hit you earlier –you made me so angry -but that was no excuse. I'm sorry. I promise I won't do that ever again. I promise I'll make you happy. I-"

"I highly doubt that," Sakura interrupted callously. The look her eyes was a mix of annoyance and impatience, like she couldn't wait for this nuisance in her day to be over with. She wasn't even remotely considering his confession.

"Let me prove it to you, Sakura," he saw her doubt as just being girlish uncertainties. "Let me go with you, wherever you want to go-"

His words were cut off by Sakura's high pitched laughter, bubbling and condescending in front of him.

"I wouldn't let you stay with me if you were the last shinobi alive," she stated with a contemptuous cruel grin. "You want to know what I think of you, Sasuke Uchiha?"

The man could only stare at her with wide astonished disbelieving eyes.

"You're _annoying."_

And that was the last he saw of Sakura that night, because the rosette had yet again bested him.

Somehow, someway, she'd managed to not only break free of his trap but also in knocking him unconscious for the rest of the night.


	3. Emerald Eyes Chapter 3

**VERY IMPORTANT: I need beta readers for my fanfics badly, so anyone interested in applying please see my profile for the application. The incentive is you'll get to see chapters A LOT earlier than the rest of my readers.**

* * *

 _Be my woman or I'll kill him._

The ultimatum was as simple as that.

Sakura Haruno stared with stiff unfeeling eyes up at Sasuke Uchiha, reigning King and tyrant of the entire Shinobi world right now.

It had been more than ten years since she had last stepped foot in the Leaf village but even before her return, Sakura had heard news about the takeover. How Sasuke Uchiha had joined with a group of shinobi terrorists called the Akatsuki bent on unification of all villages through force.

They had been a terrorist group for a long time before Sasuke joined but had only had mild success in their endeavors, most through their singular power source/leader Pain that created devastation wherever he went. But the man had been getting on in his years and it had been feared by his subordinates that with his death would come the end of Akatsuki. There had been only one man that had the potential to replace Pain inside Akatsuki and he had went by the name of Orochimaru, a missing-nin that had defected from Konoha long ago, Pain's right hand man and considered to be just as ruthless if not significantly less powerful than the man's legendary Rinnegan prowess.

It had been the villages' hope that once Pain passed and ruling went to Orochimaru, Akatsuki would start its decline and eventually face its undoing.

But then Sasuke Uchiha came into the equation.

And he was a force to be reckoned with, literally. No one. _No one_ could match his strength and tactical genius in battle and with his addition, Akatsuki finally managed to gain the one footrest they'd needed to turn the tide against the villages.

The tailed beasts.

The jinchurikis.

One by one, each individual housing the spirit of a tailed beast was abducted…and never seen again.

It wasn't until the abduction of Gaara, the Kazekage of Suna at the time, did the villages finally learn the truth: the jinchurikis were being sacrificed and their beasts extracted so that the power of the beasts could be used to awaken a tailed beast stronger than all others combined.

Ten Tails.

When Naruto Uzumaki was the only jinchuriki left, Pain had long since passed and the reigns of Akatsuki had fallen to Sasuke, a brutal force of malevolent fury and merciless blood lust.

And the best friend he'd grown up with.

It had broken Naruto's heart to have to face Sasuke in combat, and he'd put it off for as long as he could, choosing to tackle any battle where Sasuke was not at the forefront but reality forced their confrontation imminently.

Most of villages had been annexed by then and the remaining ones had either low morale (especially when news of Gaara's death passed into the world) or were on the verge of surrendering. Only Konohagakure alone, stood as the main powerhouse of the dwindling resistance.

Some say it was Naruto's love for his best friend that had ended up being the blond boy's downfall. Others say Sasuke was just better than the man and bested him fair and square. A few others say that Naruto had been too heartbroken in the end to continue fighting –they say the boy spent every moment of their battle trying to convince the Uchiha to rescind his ways, to ascertain the reason of why had defected, to ask why he had killed so many people, what he would gain if he won this war…and supposedly, the answer that Naruto received had taken the last of his fighting spirit; that he had willingly let his best friend kill him in the end.

Whatever the truth was, Naruto was killed. His body found disfigured and broken across the war torn battlefield.

And along with his death, went the last of the resistance. The few that didn't find refuge underground and continued to fight were quickly mowed down by Sasuke's unyielding army.

And soon Sasuke saw his first day as king of Shinobi world. The moment he had every village unified, before he set up any other decree, he sent out a royal edict to find one person.

Sakura Haruno.

The woman he had never once stopped thinking about since the day she left him, abandoned and heartbroken on the bench outside of Konoha's exit path. The reason he'd chosen this dark path of blood, power and **vengeance.**

 **He became an avenger for her.**

 _Because he vowed to break her will._

 _To make her as his own. To make her weak and obsequious, desperate and pining for his affections, eager to please her like he'd once done for her, that shameful **shameful** night he'd pleaded with her to stay. That had been the first and last time he'd ever begged with anyone._

Sakura had changed him that night.

She had let him see the only thing that mattered in life was power.

Because she'd been stronger than him, because he hadn't amassed enough strength, she'd been able to leave, been able to incapacitate him.

Sasuke had known he'd been living life too easily before; too much comfort and moral restraint that had led to indolence and complacency of being "among the best" in those around him instead of "the best" in the world. He'd let himself be constrained by moral and familial obligations…

But not anymore.

When his defection was discovered, when his role in Akatsuki was discovered, when his double agent status had been revealed and they'd been on the verge of incarcerating him, Sasuke had told the Uchiha dispatched to arrest him that he would not let anything stand in his way of attaining his goal. That anyone, even his own blood, would be spilled if they chose to stand in his way.

That they could choose to fight with him and live, or fight against him and eventually die.

And then he'd left, never again setting foot inside Konoha until the first day of his conquest.

Most of the Uchiha clan had chosen his side, including his parents but the few Uchiha clan members that chose to side with the Leaf were slaughtered and their names erased from the clan's archives. Itachi originally had taken a neutral side for most of the war, refusing to fight or abet his brother regardless of how much his parents implored the older Uchiha.

Itachi, a man always shrouded in mystery, seemed to have his own agenda in terms of the war, not that anyone ever knew what it was for he eventually decided to join Sasuke in the end anyway, but it wasn't until they were near the final stretch: when only Suna and Konoha was left, more than a year after Gaara's murder and Sasuke was right about to lay siege to the disheartened Sunagakure.

With Itachi's addition, Akatsuki very quickly and _easily_ overtook Suna.

And now Sasuke stood reigning overlord with Itachi as his right hand man, the older Uchiha having had no desire to rule himself.

And Sakura Haruno was finally beneath him, kneeling on the ground with her arms bound behind her as she stared with large doe like green eyes up at him, no doubt still taking in the ultimatum he had just given: become his woman or he would kill Miki.

Miki was the four year old boy she had been imprisoned with since the day of her capture by Sasuke's men. It had taken more than two years since the war ended for his men to find Sakura with how agile and adept she was in hiding and outwitting her chasers. She'd been captured on four separate occasions and each time she'd been able to escape before they could ship her to Konoha, where Sasuke stayed in most of the time, inside the newly revamped Hokage building.

On her fifth and final capture, Sakura hadn't been able to escape because Sasuke himself had come personally to ensure her arrest.

He'd kissed her the moment his eyes met her spring green ones again, right in the middle of his armed ANBU troops, all bloodied and wounded as they always were whenever they tried apprehending the Haruno girl. Sakura's face had been coated in sweat, dirt and earthly grime but she still looked immaculate in Sasuke's eyes.

 _Perfect._

With her arms bound behind her in chakra inhibiting ropes, and then a chakra sealing net for safe measure also constricting from her shoulders down to her ankles, all Sakura could do was glare with defiant fierce green eyes as Sasuke cupped her face with his hands and claimed her mouth.

After so many years, she still tasted the exact same: every bit as succulent and delicious as he remembered.

He'd been tempted - _very tempted,_ to have sex with Sakura that very same night, just inside that camping tent of his, surrounded by all his men in their assigned camps. Sasuke wouldn't have minded the inevitable voyeurism –he knew he would have still taken Sakura even if everyone in the world stood witness.

It was the fact that he would have to force her that stopped him.

Sasuke didn't want to rape Sakura.

He wanted her to submit, willingly and complacently to him.

Completely and wholeheartedly become his, and that was far beyond any kind of sexual gratification.

And so his ingenious mind had come up with a plan to curb her stubborn nature to him: he'd thrown her in a cell with a four year old boy that had been sexually, emotionally and physically abused by his parents.

And he'd let reality and his apt knowledge of human nature do the rest.

Of course Sakura took to comforting the boy when he had one of his many nervous breakdowns. Of course she grew attached to the child in just the span of four short months. Of course when he sent a convicted pedophile into the same cell who immediately tried to assault Miki, Sakura had killed the man even with all of her chakra sealed.

Okay, so he hadn't anticipated that last part.

He'd just thought she would injure, maybe incapacitate the dude, not necessarily resort straight to taking a life, even one as vile as that pedophile's may have been, but Sasuke supposed the war and the years in between had hardened Sakura's already pretty firm heart just as it had hardened his.

The same result came when he tried separating Miki and Sakura; she straight up killed the two ANBU sent in to restrain her before the other two guards even had a chance to take a hold of Miki's small arms (the original plan was obviously for two people to restrain her while the other two pulled the kid out before Sakura could interfere). And soon the other two guards fell just like their colleagues, dead and brutally torn apart by Sakura's fists.

Sasuke had underestimated Sakura's basic strength. _How the hell was she this strong without any chakra?!_ She barely looked like she had any bit of muscle on her person!

No matter, Sasuke had acknowledged aggravatingly, this facet of hers wasn't exactly hard to deal with.

He started drugging her foods, which he suspected Sakura would discover but all the same would have no way of defending herself from giving him his intended goal: her weakened disposition. Even if she chose to abstain from eating the drugged food, he would still get his desired result.

And soon, Sasuke's guards had no problem separating and detaining the boy; Sakura was subsequently pulled into Sasuke's office, bound, detained and enervated as she was. Sasuke had been right to assume she would discover the sedatives in her food; Sakura had found out the first meal, the very instant the foods had touched her lips actually -she'd been able to detect the supposedly tasteless, colorless, and allegedly undetectable drug –to Sasuke's deep bewilderment.

Regardless, he still got her weakened and prone before him.

"Be your woman…" Sakura reiterated his demand weakly, the request she'd rejected long ago, the order he'd given to her since the first day he'd captured her. Give me your heart. Submit to me.

 _"I'll give you anything."_

"Okay," Sakura reiterated with a deep resigned sigh, eyes closed and head not angled up to even look at Sasuke had her eyes been open. She knew what he must look like: smug, satisfied and content that his plan had worked.

Of course she knew Miki had only ever been a manipulation tool the Uchiha could use as leverage over her; she'd known from the first day she his damaged, shaking quivering form. Nonetheless, she could not help growing attached to the boy.

She theorized Sasuke had selected the boy out of all other damaged children because of his cherubic round face and large round endearing eyes, perhaps thinking these facets of him would make it more likely for Sakura's cold heart to care for the child.

Sasuke _really_ had **no clue** about who she really was.

But he was quite ingenious, and she had to concede this round to him.

"You will submit yourself to me, body and soul? Do anything I ask of you, willingly and without resistance or complaint?" Sasuke asked her perhaps a bit more ardently that he would have liked to reveal but he couldn't help it, the fantasy, _the dream_ of having Sakura pleasure him, wanting to please and willingly submit to anything he asked of her had too long seemed like an elusive dream in the back of his head.

He of course wanted more than just her coerced cessation, he wanted her to submit to him without the threat of him harming someone she loved, but Sasuke had other plans to ensure that next step occurred. This was the first procedure: to win her acquiescence, by any means.

Sakura nodded dully before him.

She looked completely exhausted, finally accepting that she could not surpass his will, like he always wanted.

Sasuke smiled. It was a sincere one that spread from one side of his jaw to the other through sealed lips. It was filled with smug satisfaction and self-aggrandizement. He knew -he'd _known-_ he would eventually defeat her.

But try as he might, Sasuke could not stop the other emotion that flooded just as insistently, if not **much more** , than his satisfaction: deep, _relieving_ **elation**.

He really did love her.

Sasuke found himself unable to deny this truth any longer as he stared at her kneeling form before him, still avoiding looking at his eyes. Yes…he loved her, as much as he didn't want to. As much as she didn't deserve him to.

-as much as he'd told himself that he would abandon her, throw her away like she'd done to him, as soon as his plan worked –as soon as he had her weak and vulnerable, dependent and sycophantic to his will…Sasuke knew he would never be able to separate himself from her.

He cupped her pale face now with both hands so he could look her straight in the face; he saw that she still had her eyes closed.

"Look at me," he ordered in a not-at-all-threatening-or-authoritative tone, as much as he tried to force that kind of cadence; his words came out breathy and…goddammit, _desperate_ sounding.

But Sakura still obeyed. Her large green doe like orbs met his coal black ones. In them he saw anger, irritation, forlorn defeat and genuine enmity that didn't seem to have an end to. But most of all he saw acceptance and exhaustion. She really meant to give him what he wanted, so long as he didn't harm Miki.

Sasuke had done everything in his life up to this point just to see this look in her eyes.

He had expected tears from her but he was glad there weren't any, to his own surprise. He would have thought the idea of her sobbing, pathetic, and _defeated_ would make him joyous but instead he only found the prospect revolting. It would mar her appeal, the very reason he had fallen so much in love with her: her unending strength and perseverance.

He did not want to see her break because then she would not be the woman he had fallen in love with.

 _He just wanted to make her weak enough to accept him, so he could coax her into loving him._

Sasuke found his own breath escaping in short fragmented exhales through his parted lips, unable to inhale as he acknowledged this daunting epiphany -all the while unable to tear his widened to the max eyes away from Sakura's beautiful pale emotionless countenance.

Even now she was fearless before him.

Sasuke was emotionally floored; internally defeated and realizing that he had trapped himself. Forever doomed into loving this incredible woman before him; by making her the pivotal core of his entire life, the reason he'd done anything for the last decade and more, he had cemented her position in his heart.

He was hers in every definition of the phrase and there was nothing he could do about it.

Sasuke knew now that he would never be able to harm Miki, not if it brought Sakura sadness. Not if it made her unhappy.

He was her slave.

"Just kiss me already Sasuke," Sakura stated suddenly in an exasperated voice, breaking him out of his deep thoughts and it was only then that Sasuke realized _he was the one crying._ Two cold wet tear streaks lined the sides of his photogenic cheekbones and down his sculpted jaw line.

 _Dammit._

Sasuke very quickly let go of Sakura and furiously wiped away his tears on his sleeve.

He could never keep his indifferent nature up when it came to Sakura. Another thing he hated, and unfortunately loved, about her.

A sudden loud thud occurred behind him and Sasuke looked back to find with horror that Sakura had fainted, probably out of malnutrition from too much fasting.

He was by her side in seconds, cradling her thin – _too thin-_ form with his callused hands, lightly shaking her. "Sakura, Sakura…Sakura!"

He was right about to call for his best medical-nins when Sakura's eyelids weakly stirred, and then a couple more seconds later opened, to his great relief. Sasuke let out the breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

He lifted her into his arms and quickly moved her onto his bed. He tried to place her lying down but Sakura weakly shook her head and asked to be placed sitting up against the headboard.

"I'm hungry…Sasuke," she stated weakly through half lidded eyes. "And thirsty…can I have some coffee?"

Sasuke pursed his lips.

"Coffee will only dehydrate you more," he said with genuine concern. Sakura seemed ready to argue more but in that moment, Sasuke chose to phone for the medical-nin, as well as calling for a full course dinner to be brought up to his room as well, before he could hang up, Sakura requested weakly: "Please…bring tea…I need something hot and strong."

Sasuke could not help the sexual images of her taking him through her lips and sucking him off because of her choice of words and immediately chastised his mind for going there when she was so very obviously malnourished.

 _All in good time._ Sasuke mentally told himself as he ordered a pot of tea in addition to Sakura's meal.

In just five minutes, the medics came up and in another two minutes, Sakura had four different IVs stuck into her arms, blood pressure cuffs on her arm and both of her legs recording her chakra flow, and many other various medical devices testing some part of her to diagnose what Sasuke already knew was wrong with her: malnutrition. Sasuke theorized that she'd been starving herself for well over a week now; her letting herself starve to death had never been a fear he'd had towards Sakura.

He knew her will would never let herself commit suicide, much less when someone's life depended on hers.

But he still worried about her diminishing health the entire time his guards reported to him about her not touching her food, only drinking a small sip from her cup of water every time. If she hadn't gotten weak enough by the second week, Sasuke was ready to force feed the sedatives into her.

But luckily he hadn't had to do that.

Sakura lied complacently the entire time his doctors and nurses tended to her, sending chakra into her wherever they deemed necessary for her survival while still not giving her enough to fight her way out. They had untied her chakra suppression rope binds by now, bidding Sasuke's instructions since they had caused deep painful looking bruises on her wrists and also because he knew she wouldn't dare do anything so long as Miki was in their custody.

And also because he'd already implanted a chakra blocking implant into the back of her neck, at the start of her spine when she'd finally passed out in her cell.

Sasuke doubted she knew about the implant but he didn't want to underestimate her just the same. He had no doubt that she would still try to escape if ever given the chance. He knew he had to breakdown her resistance slowly.

Sakura was just finishing her third cup of tea, and was pouring a fourth cup when the nurses deemed her stable enough for Sasuke to come near her again. He cautiously moved to sit at her bed side and took the half-finished cup of tea that she had been intending on chugging down (like she'd done with the other three cups) from her hands.

"Slow down Sakura, no one's going to steal it from you," Sasuke said with only good intentions, but realized how unintentionally taunting it sounded. He refused to take it back though.

Sakura didn't look at him and just offered a small acknowledging nod; her eyelids were dropped half closed as she came to stare at him through her lashes.

Her thoughts, as always, were obscured from him through her expression. All he saw through her face was that same form of tired exhaustion. Sasuke wished he knew what she was thinking.

She opened her mouth as if to say something but seemed to change her mind, and closed it a second later, too tired. She spoke through a barely conscious voice: "That…tea…was decaffeinated?"

Sasuke nodded. "It is too late for something caffeinated."

Sasuke mentally swore at himself. Dammit. That statement once again revealed too much of his concern for her. Recovering quickly he said in a commanding voice: "Get some sleep, Sakura."

He made to draw the covers over her but a hand came to close over his elbow, stopping him, to his surprise.

"You're not going to fuck me?"

Why were his ears suddenly burning? What the fuck. It took every ounce of his self-control to conceal his embarrassment/anxiety from his expression and voice but he succeeded. He spoke with feigned disinterest and distaste: "You're hardly healthy enough for that, Sakura."

He added a second later: "I will you take though, don't think that is a fate you can avoid."

Sasuke hated that sentence as soon as it came out. Again, it made him sound too desperate. Too needing of her. Made her too important to him. Also made him sound like some desperate pubescent teenage boy needing gratification as if it was oxygen.

He didn't hear a reply from her and Sasuke placed that to be anxiety or perhaps mental determination to prove him wrong while also not wanting to reveal her desire to escape.

Feeling the air become too awkward, Sasuke moved to stand up and leave the room.

It was only when he was on the threshold of stepping out the door that he heard Sakura's voice finally replying to his rhetorical declaration: "I never thought I could avoid that fate."

* * *

 **I know a lot of people thought I abandoned this lol, sorry for this long update. Please review!**


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